Hunter's Bias
by Saraa Luna
Summary: Even the Yautja have their flaws, and fragility exists in different forms. Unfortunately for a quiet ooman and his coonhound, the same fragility that exists in him doesn't in a curious and sadistic Badblood who's stalking the forest... if any kind of fragility is in there at all.
1. Chapter 1

Everything was going calmly that night, and he was almost drowsily considering opening the screen window in a week or two, when he heard the creaking and tapping of a branch outside his house.

It was an almost consistent creaking of limbs and the muffled tapping of something against wood, slowly bringing him out of his sleep. _Tap, tap, tap._ At first he tried to ignore it, pulling the thin sheets up around his thin limbs, but it was far too rhythmic to be any swaying branches in the night breeze outside. The chirping of crickets and the quiet buzz of night insects outside his window didn't cease as it kept going. Sleep began sliding away from his fingertips.

He still stayed quiet, skin feeling a little sticky from the spluttering AC, and silently pulled his bed sheets up closer to his face as if to shield himself from the little window across the room. Fingers clenched and prominent skinny muscles pushed up through pale skin as he silently held the wad of sheets to his mouth, unable to make himself pull the sheets over his eyes. It was a tempting thought, but his pride hadn't died that much yet, and hiding himself in the cotton thread would make it impossible to see the window.

But if he'd really wanted to see outside it and whatever was prowling around, then he wouldn't have moved his bed across the room from it, now wouldn't he? The young man scolded himself, kneading the material between his fingers, his fluffy ruffled hair half pressed into the pillow and stuck up in all directions in the air with his shifting. He might as well just finish ducking underneath the covers like a scared child. The whole situation was just a glorified and magnified version of that anyway.

_Tap, tap, tap._

The hideously constant tapping continued, seeming to grow louder and more oppressive the more he tried to shove it away from him. Curling up in a ball did nothing, and when he closed his eyes, twisted images from before collaged inside his head. The young man's eyes snapped open again, he hurriedly jerking upright in bed with the sheets still knotted around his fingers. The haunting scraps in his head were almost bad enough than what was outside; he might as well get it over with.

Up, Arthur, he told himself, but his knobby knees slung themselves over the side of the bed with a slowness that didn't match his thoughts. Arthur didn't try and rush them. His fingers pried off the covers and let the sheets slump back onto the bed, bare feet touching down on the wooden floor with a soft creak. Dull moonlight seeped through the tree branches and filled the window frame as Arthur skittered around the touches of light, nervously licking his lips and holding his arms tighter to himself.

Half-calloused hands wrapped around his elbows as he pushed through his room door, steadily feeling more bare and naked the further he descended down the cabin stairs. He was only in striped boxers and a loose tank top— something even he internally cringed at while choosing— but now, in the dark, he was grateful he was wearing it. It put a wafer thin layer between Arthur's skin and whatever dripped or touched in the outside, no matter the slenderness. He found himself beginning to play with his thumb in a nervous fidget, longing to find a flashlight switch underneath it.

By the time he was down the roughly hewn wood steps that shot up to the second floor and his bedroom, skin crawling at every echo that bounced off the living room walls, Arthur was starting to have second thoughts about walking outside in almost nothing but his boxers. He held back a gulp, fingers brushing against the doorknob and his other arm still crossed over his chest. Maybe he should go back to bed. It might've just been Jackliss toying with another shred of that disgusting raccoon skin she'd found somewhere, the coonhound kicking at a tree as she did with that twitchy back leg. Nothing else.

Arthur found the thought of rushing back up the broad stairs and into the blackened maw of the upstairs more and more appealing with the moment. The array of windows letting the waning moonlight in to play over the neatly arranged furniture offered no view to the outside, placed far up and out of reach like those of a jail cell. The rafters above and supportive poles looked like wooden stalagmites piercing out of the floor at different intervals. If the inside of his own house looked this eerily comforting, the outside wasn't going to be better, Arthur thought, mouth twisting into a shaky half smile. Why was it the wilderness seemed to eat up any building or creature in it in some hungry kind of possessive?

He'd take both the flashlight and Jackliss with him to go look, Arthur decided, digging through the couch cushions of the nearest sofa and pulling out the light he'd stuffed there a few days earlier. His family would have called him odd or wasteful for putting it there instead of the fine maple desk or helpful coffee table in the center of the room, but they weren't there to see him, and for once, Arthur didn't care about their images manifesting and judging him in his head.

They weren't the ones who'd had to deal with this for almost a month now, Arthur thought, experimentally giving the flashlight a shake and hearing the satisfying rattle of the batteries. Through a small spot of shame, he thought that the desk and coffee table were too far away into the swirls of moonlight and darkness than the couch, and he didn't want to have to wade through blackness before he needed to.

Swallowing down his last fears, Arthur forced his eyes away from the tempting light switches only a reach away and tightened his grip on both flashlight and doorknob. He slowly turned the knob, shoving open the door and grabbing the entrance frame of the door before his fingers could inch towards the light switches and betray him. The shadowy trees and fuzzy splinters of waning moonlight gave a greeting of hot air licking across his face and body. The inner coolness of the house was the only thing holding him in, and already, Arthur could feel goose bumps popping on his arms and legs as the cool air tumbled out from around him. Even in the night, the heat was not quite merciless.

He took one forced step out onto the wooden stairs and felt the gap of nothing behind his ankle, the yellowish light coating his stair steps seeming to whisper promises of things reaching their claws through the gaps and raking against his feet. Fantastic, Arthur thought, trying to keep his mind steady as he gradually shut the door behind him and ignored the slight trembling his boxers seemed to be doing on their own. Three seconds outside at night since the beginning of the month, and he was already being attacked by an overactive imagination. Not that he didn't have the sufficient amount of nightmare fuel for it already, but that was no excuse. He needed someone with a more level head and less of a rampant discomfort in the woods right then.

But first, the flashlight. Arthur clicked the switch on with one thumb. A sword of light cut through the dark and colored the steps and worn bare ground, making him blink once to clear his eyes. If possible, the electronic light was yellower than the moon, artificial light already beginning to draw little flocks of moths and gnats to its beam.

"Jackliss?" Arthur called, finding his voice a raspy whisper. It was a pathetic excuse for yell. Keeping his gaze off his moving feet, he went down another step, feeling disgusted by his own quietness. The flashlight beam jarred and progressed forward, revealing more of the cluttered treeline nearby. He'd let the dog off her chain leash to keep her from being a trussed-up target in the darkness, even while knowing she had some wandering spirit in her paws, and now he was too scared to call properly for her?

"Jaaackliss," Arthur said, raising his tone up above the demented murmur he'd had before, and a pale foot found another step downwards. The crickets and whirring bugs seemed to find something threatening in his raised voice, going silent for eerie bursts of seconds in their bushes and tanged patches of weeds that sprouted from around the trees. If it had been during the day, the reedy quaver that had entered Arthur's voice would have even made him pause. "Jaaackliss! Here, Jackie-jackie!"

The only response to the childish pet name being yelled out into the infinity of the trees was a moth brushing against the side of his boxers. Arthur flicked it away, going quiet again. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the soft tapping once more— or if he'd even heard it in the first place— but all he could do now was wait. Jackliss didn't sit around after being called more than three times. If she wasn't on one of her wanderings of the forest, then she would be back.

As the minute stretched by and the crowd of fluttering moths increased, Arthur forcefully kept himself on the second step and dug the nails from his free hand into his side. He was a skinny and almost hunched figure on the steps, orange-striped boxers and pitiful shirt in all, and the fact that Jackliss wasn't coming quickly had ruled out his hopeful thought of her being the cause of the tapping. It had to be another one of _them_, Arthur thought, heart beating against his ribcage faster as he didn't dare further the whispering suspicions at the back of his head.

Thankfully for him, he didn't have to be alone with them long. There was a distant rustling that slowly became louder, a trailing shaking of bushes and rustling of leaves that momentarily made Arthur seize up where he stood before they cheerfully continued to come closer, taking a familiar form that trotted from the trees. Two bright eyes glowed a neon green and shifting blue as the flashlight beam hit them at the right angle, but as the broad head and drooping jowls came into view with a wagging tail following, they turned back to their pale brown.

Relief sagged in Arthur's stomach as he descended the remaining steps, kneeling to scratch behind the redbone hound's ear. Jackliss wagged her tail in appreciation, bedraggled fur and throat holding twigs, briars, and a general scruffiness. The floppy and scratched leather collar around her neck was no worse for wear after yet another one of her expeditions into the wilderness, though Arthur mentally reminded himself to check her for ticks later. He frowned at a reddish stain on her mouth and a stickiness that wasn't quite gone from the top of her sleek muzzle he'd started stroking, one of the only spots out of reach from her curling tongue.

"Jackliss, what did you go and eat this time?" he said, giving her black nose a scratch. Jackliss gave a whine of happiness. A little sense of disgust bounced in his stomach as Arthur thought of the carnage she'd probably rolled herself in afterwards, he suddenly less keen to pet the rest of her.

He remembered what he was outside for as Jackliss cocked her ears, breaking away from one affectionate lick of her master's hand to momentarily stare at a corner of the house. Away from the higher up living room windows and general area beaten down for display, the trees hung around the house greedily with leaning trucks and outstretched limbs.

Arthur swallowed, security that had filled him vanishing and skin feeling very fragile and soft against the hard dirt. He stood up again, winding his fingers into Jackliss's loose scruff and wrapping them around her collar at the same time. A turn of the flashlight beam revealed the clustering trees and gaping darkness around them, branches reaching out ahead to almost scratch the roof and form a twisted domed path along the side of his house. A few of the rough driveway gravels had bounced down the path in a mocking lead, some embedded in mud. It was almost straight out of a western Brother's Grimm tale, the driveway pebbles reminding Arthur of a bad parody of the breadcrumbs Hansel and Gretel had dropped. As if he needed more to be anxious about.

"Come on, Jackie-jackie," he muttered, feeling far less brave than the suddenly sniffing and absorbed dog beside him. She was already tugging to go, rubbing shedding redbone fur that clung to his boxers with her insistence little rears. If she began baying, Arthur half suspected he'd just make a run for the house. "We have… something… to look for."

Dog and owner headed off into the darkness, only a flashlight beam and an eager nose guiding their way.

* * *

As the black path engulfed them, Arthur was on the very edge with every touch of cool ground and gravel underneath his feet and only held in place by the insistently tugging and furiously sniffing Jackliss at his side. The coonhound had decided she'd missed something interesting out on one of her nightly jaunts and devouring of the local small wildlife, and there was no way it was to escape her.

Arthur had been forced to let go of her scruff and collar as she began her tracking, head fiercely pulled low with her red ears dangling at the level of her snuffling nose. Not wanting to lose hold of her, however, Arthur had settled for childishly holding on to her swaying tail. It felt as if he had the warmest and boniest dowsing rod alive in his hand. There were no more sounds other than the sniffing of the dog and calling of insects, and Jackliss had remained quiet as she and Arthur neared the place of the now silent tapping he'd known had been coming from near the outside of his bedroom.

He was so intent on following Jackliss and not losing either of them to the dark that he almost missed the swinging figure that abruptly appeared in his flashlight beam.

Arthur stared blankly and allowed Jackliss to tow him closer to the hanging thing before he realized what it was, or what it had been, and he immediately let go and stumbled with a choked scream as Jackliss eagerly tore her nose from the ground and began advancing, already sniffing the air and beginning to circle it.

Hanging suspended from a branch right next to the roof, point of the limb softly resting on the shingles, was the pink and raw red corpse of a wildcat. It was impossible to tell which species it had once been. Every bit of fur and skin had been stripped from its limbs, a tangle of intestines hanging from the gaping cavity underneath its ribcage and looking to break free now that its prison of skin was gone. White and yellow streaks of fat clung to joints and pure raw muscle, giving off a slight slimy glow in the flashlight. A first class study in anatomy.

The worst part of the carcass, however, was the head. Every last semblance of flesh had been stripped from it and it only it, progressing further than the rest of the body. Shards of what had once been the skull were beautifully polished and whitened, as if someone had purposely cleaned and shined it for show, but then pounded a railroad spike through it. Pulp of brains and dripping red bone shards hung as the flattened remains of what had once been a head, a dark maroon stain dripping down the once-jaw forming a splattered puddle underneath the body.

Arthur tried to choke back the gurgling and nausea tearing through his throat, stomach heaving along with his chest and flashlight shaking erratically in his hand, but the feline body gave a few bobs as Jackliss barked at it, lunging and giving an experimental snap. She didn't tolerate wildcats of any species, alive or eviscerated. The smashed and leaking pancake of skull gave a jingle at her movement, branch softly tapping against the roof. Arthur's other scream and moan was drowned out as he clutched his belly with fingernails digging in and emptied his stomach for all it was worth in the nearby bush.

Jackliss gave a small pause at her companion's reaction as she watched him shakily pull up from the bush again, whole frame trembling. He wiped the back of his mouth on one hand, beam of light dancing at the nerves in him but refusing to travel above the puddle of dripped red on the ground to look at its originator. The lack of straight light didn't prevent his wide brown eyes from staring at it as he backed up with one step after another. A whimpering sound crawled out of his throat, making Jackliss further concerned before she put her attention on the smell of raw meat and enemy above her.

Keeping back another retching sound in his chest, Arthur turned heel and fled backs towards the house before he could see his dog take another snap or curious sniff at the carcass.

Feet pounding up the stairs and door slamming open, Arthur didn't bother to keep the light switches off this time around. The living room and one guttering porch light came on, but he ignored them, skidding around the furniture with chest heaving as he went straight for the phone. The door slammed behind him as he began to fumble with dialing the numbers, beginning to feel the shivering set in. He needed to find a place to sit.

"Pick up, pick up," Arthur hissed, hunched over the table as he cradled the phone to his ear and heard the continuous ringing. He felt like the phone was purposely torturing him. "Come on, please pick up—"

Nothing happened. Panic building in Arthur's chest, he dialed the number again, taking a step back from the table and making himself control his breathing. The quiet shivering and hyperventilation was kicking in now, and it was perhaps worse than the heaving his chest had been doing during his running.

There was finally a click of the receiver at the seventh ring. Arthur perked up, holding the phone close.

A slurred voice came through the speakers. "Argh, damn, my _head_— who the hell's calling?" it said, immediately becoming vicious. Arthur tightened his grip on the phone and tried to convince himself he was feeling relief.

"Connor, you're there! Listen, this is really important—"

"Arthur?" the slurred voice came again, and Arthur could picture Connor shaking his head to get rid of some of the budding hangover as he leaned against the wall, phone in hand. "Is that you? Alright, I'm not dealing with this bullshit at 2 in the morning, whether or not you found another goddamn exploded bird or something—"

"Don't hang up!" Arthur yelled, hearing a menacing clink in the background. For some unfathomable reason, Connor still had a corded house phone, and he was constantly getting tangled in its coils. At least it gave him a heads-up to whenever he was trying to hang up, Arthur thought, focusing intently on the paused louder breathing at the other end of the line. "This is really important; you have to listen or help me out here."

Connor gave a snort at the hint of nervous reediness in Arthur's voice, and he could hear the sound of a broken couch shifting. He'd probably just finished drinking and only struggled over to the beaten futon in his living room, Arthur realized, further calming down his beating heart and harder breathing. One couldn't talk over the phone while they were hyperventilating.

"'Help you out?' Arthur, we're in the middle of the goddamn wilderness; do you want me to drive seven miles to your house to look for some owl who hooted too loud or something?" Connor sounded ready to give another snort, but something deflated in him over the phone, and a long sigh came out instead. Arthur found he was holding part of his breath. "Look, just go back to sleep. You can deal with the bird or whatever later, I don't know why you went looking for it after 1 AM. Just drag that mutt Jake, Jakely, or whatever inside with you. It'll be fine."

There was a slurred swear outside of the speaker as Connor apparently explored more of the growing hangover he'd prematurely woken up to, and Arthur heard a muffled mutter of 'bloody paranoid city boy.' He held his tongue back from making a remark, fear and something else dulling him. Connor was terrible at controlling voice volume when he wasn't sober.

"Connor, it wasn't another bird," he said, another small quaver coming into his voice at the thought of the pulverized skull and slick muscle. "If it was, I wouldn't have called you. It… was something else this time."

There was another short pause over the phone as Connor picked up some of the seriousness in Arthur's tone, hearing a level of nervousness that usually wasn't there. Arthur could hear him sitting up straighter on the couch, it wheezing in protest.

"I thought you said whatever the hell it was just left birds," Connor said. Arthur could picture him rubbing his forehead and pinching the bridge of his nose to bring himself back into consciousness.

"It was just birds before," Arthur said, leaning his elbows on the phone table and feeling slightly safer in his lit-up living room than the dark outside. He tried not to picture how the beams of electric light would look pouring out of the high windows to anything outside, a screaming beacon to the forest. "There wasn't much left of the first one you saw, and the other ones were all around the driveway with… their heads messed up… but it stopped after I found the fourth one last week." Arthur swallowed despite himself, hating the nervous habit. "This one was a cat."

"What, like a house cat or something?" Connor said, sounding less slurred and more awake. There was actually a touch of concern in his voice as he shrugged off the remaining haziness in light of the situation. "Brenda was bitching at me for accidentally taking hers with me after that fat ball of fur crawled into my trunk before I left the outpost; it went missing a week ago afterwards." His voice trailed off he did something on the other side of the line, and Arthur could hear a few broken mutters. "Shit… don't want to have to explain if that's it… _four_ goddamn birds… a month… Jesus…"

"No, it was a wildcat," Arthur said, ignoring the mutters. His arm had curled around his waist again, fingers following the nervous tic of kneading into his shirt and the corner of his boxers. "It was too big to be the outpost tabby." Arthur couldn't keep back the hysterical laugh that followed, voice becoming high pitched. "And it was all plucked up just like the birds and hung nicely outside my window. Merry Christmas!"

"Morgan, calm the hell down," Connor snapped, some of his sympathy disappearing. Arthur shut his mouth at hearing his last name, suddenly feeling tempting to let loose a few more strangled giggles. It'd be inappropriate, but there were a lot of things wrong with this situation, Arthur thought as he bit his lip. Connor gathered his thoughts on the other end of the line. "Wait, did you say this thing was strung up? Like someone was trying to clean it?"

"Right outside my house," Arthur said, trusting himself to speak again as he adjusted the phone against his ear. "And I don't know what you count as 'clean,' but it looked pretty clean of skin to me already." A hint of hysterical still clung to his words.

Connor gave a low whistle over the phone, temporarily forgetting his position as comforter. "Holy shit. I thought the stupid birds might've gotten tangled up in your laundry line or plucked up by bloody fox before your mutt drove it away, but you don't get a whole bobcat or whatever the hell neatly put up in a tree on accident."

"All the birds except the first were hung up," Arthur said flatly. "I thought I told you that."

"What?" Connor said, sounding startled. "Hell no. I thought the one that wasn't blown to bits got stuck in the line, and the rest all just died around your house. Must've had a misunderstanding."

Arthur had a feeling that misunderstanding was the amount of beer Connor had chugged before he'd picked up the phone that day.

"Either way, that thing is still hanging out there," Arthur said, a sick nagging feeling inside him that he'd forgotten something. "What should I do? I'm not touching it, even if Jackli—" He stopped dead.

"Oh, Christ."

"What?" Connor said sharply, hearing him go silent. Arthur could feel his heart slamming into his chest again, mouth dry as his thoughts bloomed into gruesome worries and realizations.

"I left Jackliss outside," Arthur said, voice hollow. "With whatever might've put it up there."

For a moment, there was silence on the other end of the phone, and then Connor gave an angry snort. "That's it? You're worried about your goddamn dog outside? C'mon, Morgan, the bloody thing can look after its flea-bitten hide better than you can yours, and whatever put the cat up is probably long gone."

"I'm going to go get her," Arthur burst out, words escaping before he could finish weighing the conflict in his mind. He'd seen the birds and the wildcat, and the hideous imaginary images of what Jackliss would look like with her sleek red hide gone and neck snapped like one of the unfortunate hawks or songbirds were burning into his head like the end of heated poker. The fear of that happening outstripped his cowardice and nervousness.

Arthur could practically hear Connor rolling his eyes or mouthing an expletive at him through the phone. "Fine then, you go get your stinking mutt after getting my ass up at 2 AM," he growled. "You and your bleeding priorities…" Connor abruptly drifted off, gruffness and annoyance disappearing from his voice. "Arthur, just go grab the damn dog and get yourself inside. Lock the door and don't go out," he said, serious, with all traces of the hangover gone. Arthur nodded his head over the phone though Connor couldn't see him. "This is more than just a bird or two getting eaten up by a fox; there's someone with a fucked-up head out there. The police aren't going to come out this early. Just wait 'til eight or nine to call them and get this shit settled, alright?"

"Got it."

Connor gave a groan, effects of the liquor coming back. "I'm getting tired of you waking me up past 12 to tell me about some goddamn skinned animal… gets my hangovers going faster…" he muttered as an afterthought. The phone clicked as he hung up.

Arthur only held it a little longer before pressing the END button and jamming it into the receiver, keeping back his faster breathing as he went to the door to call for Jackliss. As the coonhound finally abandoned the hanging carcass of the wildcat and came running out of the darkness, enthralled to be let inside the house, Arthur locked the door, flicked off most of the lights, and settled down next to her on one of the couches. There was no way on earth he was heading upstairs, closer to the tapping of the hung body and revealed flesh… He quietly huddled closer to his dog next to a dim lamp as Jackliss made herself comfortable.

This was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time the police arrived in the afternoon, Arthur had changed himself into some loose blue jeans and a T-shirt, and had attempted to drink a cup of coffee no less than ten times. He'd failed each try.

He kept a pale arm crossed over his chest and the steaming cup of coffee in the other hand as he stood on his porch stairs, watching the police walk back and forth from the cursed back of his house and bark a few things into walkie-talkies here and there. Two of their cars were pulled up into his long driveway, and there was the sound of crunching gravel whenever someone went over to get something.

Arthur glanced down at his coffee cup, feeling the tired bags growing underneath his eyes. The smooth and dark brown surface of the caffeine looked back up at him. It was untouched since he'd hastily brewed it with shaking hands and almost dumped a whole cup of coffee grain into the cup on accident. He was only holding it to do something with his hands, distrustful of them and their gripping fingers. The warm glow of the cup against them at least kept them busy.

One of the policemen, an officer with thick arms and a bulging belly that strained against his brown uniform shirt, finished scribbling something on a report and lazily walked over to Arthur. Despite the hideous look of the bobcat carcass they'd identified, none of them seemed very perturbed by its presence or in any kind of hurry to find who was responsible, even after Arthur had told them about the string of birds and small animals before. This just made him more nervous. He gripped the coffee cup harder, forcing a polite smile out at the officer who came to a stop in front of him. It looked more like he was going to be sick.

"How… how's it going, Officer?"

The officer nodded his head as if Arthur had just inquired about the weather and not a flayed animal corpse they were peeling out of a tree. "Good."

Arthur's smile became even more forced as he noticed a black plastic tarp being unloaded from the police car and walked over to the corner of the house, its surface dimly shining in the light. The sun had come up with enthusiasm, sending rays piercing through the leafy tops of the forest and awakening all the animals within it. Birds were flitting from tree to tree, twittering away, and all the greenness of the trees and weeds were practically radiant in the day, the smell of honeysuckle and pine masking that of the stink of heated wildcat. Jackliss's occasional whine and bark joined the noise of the moving policemen from her dog house.

The officer pulled a notepad from his pocket, yellow paper crinkled and slightly beaten. He clicked a ballpoint pen and experimentally made a scribble on the side before looking up Arthur with a more business-like air. More questions, of course, Arthur thought, grinding part of his heel into the porch and hoping the officer wouldn't notice. He'd been expecting yellow tape and a far more fanatical operation for what he'd reported, but none of that had happened. Apparently what would have put a city neighborhood or large town in an uproar wouldn't do the same to a bunch of isolated homes linked by only by a remote trading post and clustering of stores. This was the country, after all, Arthur reminded himself, scolding his expectations for the seventh time that day.

"I'm going to ask you for a more few elaborations on Officer Brandon's questions," the officer said. Arthur tried to keep his eyes on the officer's face instead of watching the other two that had accompanied him march down the side of his house with the tarp and wire cutters in hand. The bobcat had been strung up well with some kind of wire, and all previous attempts to untie it or snap the line had proven futile. The officer questioning him poked at the paper again. "The name's Officer Daniel. You said you didn't touch the body before we arrived here, correct?"

"Yes," Arthur said, inwardly squeamish at the idea of it. He still managed to keep his face emotionless. He hated picking up scraps of the animals Jackliss always ate; trying to dislodge that wildcat corpse in the dark and in nothing more than his boxers wasn't an appealing thought. "I found it early in the morning, so I went back inside instead of trying to pull it down. I thought the police might've wanted to see it."

Internal correction, Arthur thought: I didn't want to ever see it again and I was going to let you deal with it. He tilted the cup in his hand, being careful not to rub the edge against his white shirt and stain it. After curling up on the couch with Jackliss for several long and sleepless hours, he'd given up on resting and gotten changed at 3 in the morning. Jackliss had gotten restless afterwards and ended up coating him in shedding fur again.

Officer Daniel scribbled something down before looking up again. He wasn't very cleanly shaven, and a shadow covered the underside of his square jaw. Blocky eyebrows framed a scarred and weathered face that had seen much and been worn down like the side of a granite cliff that faced the elements. "I heard your hound barkin' earlier," he said, both of the eyebrows furrowing. "Are you sure it didn't start in on the body before you got there?"

No, but Jackliss would've liked to, Arthur thought, taking a quick peek towards where the others officers had gone. The coonhound had been eagerly pawing at the door when the pink and orange sunrise had started creeping above the trees, and she'd been disappointed when Arthur had tethered her to her doghouse again. He was worried about making her target for whatever was lurking out in the woods, but he didn't trust her stop pestering the police for scratches or to keep her distance from the evidence they were looking at, especially since it was dead and edible.

"No. She helped me find it, but I kept her from getting too close— Jackliss has been chained since I woke up."

Officer Daniel gave a grunt in reply, looking over the other notes he had jotted down. "You said this wasn't the first time it happened?"

"Yes," Arthur said, his fingers fiddling over the surface of the cup as he saw the other officers coming back with the tarp hanging between them like an occupied hammock, something weighing it down. He wasn't sure that he was feeling relief in the pit of his stomach, or something else. "The others were hung up…. birds…." Arthur faltered as the officer noticed his glance towards the filled tarp and pocketed his notepad and pen again.

"Well, it looks like we're about done here," Officer Daniel said, watching them load it into the back of one police car. Arthur could bet the unfortunate vehicle would smell like cat for months to come unless they sprayed it out with air freshener. "We've taken some pictures before we took it down. Going to let one of the wardens look over it for the record. This isn't the first case we've had, and we've almost got this wrapped up. Mr. Morgan, I suggest you report anymore hung up animals immediately," Officer Daniel said, turning his attention back to Arthur. The latter was barely taller than the policemen standing in front of him, steps included. "We suspect it's a rogue poacher, some basket case with too much time on their hands… this is the fourth report from someone in three months."

Officer Daniel frowned.

"Haven't seen them using wire up until now or messing with the body quite as much, but we're tracking them down. Haven't seen them target any domesticated animals, cats, dogs, or otherwise either, but I suggest you take that hound in for the night or keep a close eye on it. They might decide to switch things up here before we can hone in on them."

Arthur nodded his head, holding back a silent gulp. He was suddenly tempted to try and force himself to drink his coffee again. "I understand. Thank you, Officer Daniel."

The officer gave a short wave as he turned away from Arthur and headed back towards the police cars. "Just doin' our duty." He climbed into the driver's seat, moved a walkie-talkie aside, and the battered cruiser turned in Arthur's driveway before pulling into the woods, other car following it like a miniature convoy into the wilderness. The trees swallowed them up in seconds.

Arthur stood on the porch and stared down his empty driveway until he could no longer hear the sounds of the car wheels crunching over loose gravel, and the rustling of the leaves and sound of the active fauna reclaimed their home's noise. After they were gone, he sat his coffee cup on the railing and immediately went to unleash Jackliss and bring her inside the house. Though it was still daytime and Officer Daniel had reassured him they were coming close to shutting the case, he still felt unsettled.

"Come on, Jackie-jackie," he said, unclipping her chain from her dog house. She began to eagerly sniff the air and pull on the lead, wanting to check on the now removed bobcat. Arthur was forced to jerk her chain back to keep her under control, metal links almost snapping around his knuckles with the force she took off. "NO! It's gone, Jackliss. STOP."

He tugged her leash and began to walk her back to the house, Jackliss giving a single whine of vexation. Arthur took his cup from the porch railing when they returned to the entrance, pushing the door open and trying to ignore the brief prickle of something down his spine. The trees around them suddenly seemed a little thicker and more secretive.

"I think we need to go give Connor a call…"

* * *

Arthur had been hoping for peace after the police visited and he told Connor the problem was resolved, and in the time afterwards, it almost seemed he was getting it. There were no more suspended birds or wildcats outside his home, surrounding forest tranquil and unbothered by anything other than the local animals. As the days melted into weeks without another dissected or mutilated carcass turning up or the police calling to inform him of the case's status, Arthur began to relax— but not entirely. Officer Daniel's warning about the poacher may have been only for precautions, but Arthur hadn't taken it lightly, and Jackliss had become a regular tenant inside his home when nightfall came.

It was actually Jackliss whom was giving him more stress than anything else, Arthur thought, rubbing his eyes as he curled up on the couch. He attempted to read another page of the Outdoor Life magazine he'd picked up in the mail and found the words blurring in his vision. His older brother had bought him the subscription with his own money— Arthur's money— and enthusiastically told him to read it while he slipped $20 into his own coat pocket for the upcoming weekend in the city.

It wasn't a bad magazine, Arthur thought, skimming the seventh page he'd tried to look at in five minutes. Not at all. That much. He flipped forward three pages again and stared at all the recommendations for hotspots in mountain climbing. All of the models climbing the sheer face of the cliff in the picture next to it seemed far too clean and unscarred to be hanging in the mysteriously clean and fresh harnesses. Yes, Arthur thought, side of his mouth tugging into a frown as he bent the page with his fingers, because there was nothing like crawling up 300 feet in the air on jagged rocks to keep your clothes and skin in one piece.

Arthur yawned and flipped past some article about an arctic record set by a climber named Alexa Woods, breezing through five more pages and quashing down the rude idea of using the sleek magazine pages to pick up whatever scraps Jackliss brought home next. That would be terrible. He'd lose so much important and interesting… things. Plus, his brother or sister would be looking for the magazines with sharp eyes the next time they came to visit, and he didn't want to disappoint them by throwing the subscription out.

It was Jackliss's fault for making him too tired to be drawn into the pages, Arthur decided, closing the magazine and setting it on the desk nearby. He slumped onto his couch, glancing towards the giant back door and cheerful glass windows set on either side of it. His sister had bought the house from a big game enthusiastic, and when the man had moved out, it became apparent he'd modified the back side of the house in order to allow his trophies to be hauled in easier. The back door was asininely big for the comfortable little room it connected to, a mere portal to bring whatever taxidermy prize the game hunter wanted inside his house. Then they'd been taken to the living room and hung like so many plaques on display, Arthur thought, settling against a gnawed-on cushion. Jackliss had gotten her teeth into it when she was younger. He'd quickly hidden the tear marks when the family arrived. They hadn't noticed since.

But if they came to visit now, what they _would_ notice was the midnight barking and pacing of a very agitated coonhound. Though the weeks after the bobcat had been removed had been quiet, Jackliss had woken Arthur up three days after it was gone with a rousing howl and frantic clawing at the front door. Before he could compose himself, she'd stopped, barking dying down to a dim growl before she stared piercingly at the door for another half hour and turned away, apparently pleased with whatever she'd done. As far as Arthur was concerned, this was just her revenge for being kept inside nights. There was nothing outside when'd timidly peeked out in the morning, and there was still nothing there the other two times she'd stormed down the stairs from his room and threw herself at the back or front door.

Jackliss chose to compensate for being held back from her night jaunts by heading out for hours deep into the woods during the day and coming back with a full belly, half-heartedly rejecting the dog food Arthur tried to feed her. He'd moved her to a box and old blanket outside his room for smelling like raccoons and things he didn't wish to know about whenever she came back.

Arthur was broken out of his reverie by the echoing sound of a phone ringing. Blinking in surprise, he clambered off the couch and picked up the phone in the corner of the room.

"Hello?"

"Arthur Morgan?" a gruff voice asked.

"….yes?" Arthur said, taken aback and confused by the blunt greeting. He tapped his fingers against his table. The voice was vaguely familiar from somewhere.

"You were one of those involved in the skinned animal case a month or so earlier, weren't you?" he asked. Arthur had a feeling he was reading from a list.

"Yes," Arthur said, suddenly feeling his heart pick up a few beats. His fingers began to fiddle aimlessly over the wood. "Is… is there anything new? Do you need to question me again?"

"No," the man said, and Arthur recognized his voice just he introduced himself. "Officer Brandon here. I'm calling to tell you the case is closed; we've caught the perpetrator."

Happiness and a magnitude of relief Arthur wasn't expecting himself to feel spread throughout his body, and he found himself smiling over the shock, fingers frozen in their twiddling. "Really? That's fantastic! When did you catch them?"

"Him," Officer Brandon corrected. "I didn't know if you read the outpost news, so I decided to play safe about it and give you a call. We caught one Mr. Jeremiah Walker. Long-time out-of-season poacher with a few mental issues and anger management problems. It turns out he got angry at one of the liquor stores down at the outpost for not selling to him while he was drunk, and since they did deer-cleaning in their spare time, he decided to hang up some animals to screw with them. Mr. Walker flat out admitted everything when we got him in custody."

Arthur had no idea how skinning everything but deer and hanging them around random homes would be any kind of revenge, but seeing it made sense somewhere in the diseased mind of Mr. Walker, he didn't want to question it. What mattered was that this was over, he thought, still smiling in relief.

"Thank you for telling me, Officer," Arthur said, watching the sunshine that poured in from the back door windows with a new joy. Even the distant twittering and cawing of the birds seemed that much happier and safer.

"No problem."

Officer Daniel gave his goodbye and hung up before Arthur could say anything else. It didn't matter to him. He found himself smiling like an idiot as he put the phone down, feeling like the final cloud had been lifted from his sky. There didn't have to be any more worries about a psychotic person creeping around the edges of his house, no more holding his breath when he was forced to check the outside for more avian victims, and restless Jackliss could be kept out of the house once more. Everything was looking up.

Arthur felt like being outside for once. Still smiling, though not as broadly as before, he opened the back door and moved to sit down on his steps. Unlike the front of the house, the back door opened up into almost sheer wilderness and a few decrepit flower pots that had been cracked under creeping ivy vines and pure neglect. The well-trodden path from the driveway to the large steps that the previous house owner had used to transport his trophies over was being eaten by nature, already just a thin brown line instead of the road it had been before. Weeds and flowers leaned over it like a canopy underneath a canopy, they dwarfed by the bushes and trees towering over them. Sunlight warmed Arthur's skin as he sat down on the middle step, loosely curling his arms around his legs. The faint smell of honeysuckle drifted through the trees. If it wasn't for feeling the hard grain of the wooden stair underneath him, he'd have thought he was going to another world.

He was almost on the verge of closing his eyes and taking in the atmosphere when a familiar rustling and panting sound approached from the woods, making its way over to the steps. Arthur was quickly brought down to earth by the sight of Jackliss trotting over the shrinking path, burs stuck in her fur and a fuzzy shred hanging out of her mouth. Even worse, she seemed very content to climb up the stairs and gnaw on it next to him.

"No, no," Arthur said, hastily standing up and waving his hands at the dog and her furry prize. "Jackliss, stop—"

Jackliss gave him no heed and bounced up the stairs, splaying out across them and beginning to chew on the scrap of fur almost directly on top of his bare feet. Arthur winced before sighing in defeat and moving a step up, watching her smugly nibble away.

"You're usually not this messy or untidy with your meal, you know that, Jackie-jackie?" he said, looking over the ragged shred of striped fur in her mouth and burs stuck in her scruff. As unpleasant as it was, Jackliss had technique when it came to eating groundhogs or otherwise: kill it, gut it, and eat everything but the stomach and feet. The end result was something like a tiny haggis left beside a miniature fur rug, everything the hound considered tasty stripped off. Arthur was thankful she didn't bring too much of her meal home.

Still, he thought, frowning as she picked at a little tidbit on the fur, she usually didn't rip the pelt up. Not unless the living owner of the pelt in it was attempting to bite into her face or throat, which happened fairly often before she managed to still it. Seeing her ears hadn't been shredded into fringes recently, the raccoon she was eating part of— if that was what it was, Arthur thought, watching it with squeamishness— had already been killed and torn up. Nature was lovely.

"You have a lot of luck on your side this year," Arthur said, looking over her healed ears. Slots and pieces were torn out of them, her left one having a tear that went halfway up what was left of her floppy ear. "How are you getting so many raccoons without getting cut up? Not that I'm complaining," he quickly added, glancing skyward to make sure no omnipresent force had heard him and decided to revoke the luck he had. Patching up Jackliss or taking her to the vet 30 miles away to do so was hardly fun.

Jackliss gave no reply, her tail wagging once and thumping against the stairs.

* * *

Much later, Arthur blearily opened his eyes, sitting up in bed. After he'd finished rubbing them and pushed the bed sheet off of him, it took him a moment to realize that his eyes were being stung by the sun. Jackliss hadn't woken him up during the night and there had been no terrible tapping outside. He'd actually managed to sleep in 'til after the sun rose and illuminated his room.

Energized by the realization, Arthur made his bed and got changed, almost humming as he glanced out the window. The dew had evaporated from the pricks of the pine trees under the gaze of the sun, and a squirrel froze before it darted up a tree with a nut clamped between its teeth. A stray green pinecone or two had fallen to the ground and rolled over the once-darkened path Arthur and Jackliss had crept down more than a month ago. It and the scattered gravels didn't look so menacing anymore.

Arthur walked down the stairs, having a rare moment of appreciation for the sun pouring through the high up windows of the mammoth built living room. They might've been useless for other than light or show, and Arthur couldn't deny he still wished he could look out of them without a ladder, but at least they were bright today. He passed by them and entered his large and hardly touched kitchen, set of knives and pots and pans gathering dust, and some fast refrigerator digging yielded a muffin. Arthur sat down at a small table and relaxed in a chair, feeling unworried for once. Today was going to be a good day.

After he was done with his breakfast, Arthur thought of Jackliss. He began to head for the bag of dog food in his kitchen closet before remembering the multiple times she'd snubbed it, leaving it alone. The bag was kept in the house instead of out after Arthur had opened it one day to find a hissing possum napping inside. That'd been the final straw for moving it somewhere more secure.

Arthur went for the door instead of the kitchen closet, opening it and feeling the warm summer air on his skin. He'd check on Jackliss before scooping anything out. If she had helped herself to another sampling of woodland creatures last night, it would be pointless to try and feed her. Arthur didn't even have to go all the way to her doghouse to see the coonhound blissfully stretched out over the driveway gravel, basking in the sun. Jackliss looked up at the shadow of her owner almost hanging over her and gave a lazy wag of her tail, it thumping against the ground and sending a few small gravels flying. She didn't even bother to get up and greet him. Arthur gave a shake of his head at her bloated stomach and messy fur, unwilling to pet her muzzle lest she lick his hand with something still sticking in her mouth.

"You're terrible, Jackliss."

She gave another wag of her tail and went back to sunning, back leg giving a kick.

Arthur had turned around and was getting ready to walk back into the house when he glimpsed something shining in a nearby tree. He blinked before freezing in his spot, unsure of what he was seeing, before staring blankly at the thing at the edge of the driveway. Arthur's face went pale.

A skinned and trussed up animal the size of groundhog leered at him out of shattered and flattened eye sockets, hung off the tree branch by its back legs and one shining line of wire. A broken off tooth lay underneath it in the dried puddle of blood encrusted on the ground, the part not drowning in crimson mockingly polished to perfection. The body was expertly skinned and intact, shards of the skull that weren't beaten into marrow pulp neatly cleaned. A few flies buzzed around the carcass before lighting on it, flitting away on clear wings before returning. The body had been there for a while. Enough for the sun to create the beginning of a stink around it and draw in the insects.

All Arthur could stare at was the stretched length of the glimmering wire, it tied to a tree branch far above the reach of a person.

He gagged before running for the house.

* * *

"Connor, I don't think my priorities are that out of order." Arthur paused, laying his finger against the calendar in his kitchen. A blotched red dot marked the date. "I'm not very good at driving home tipsy or drunk, which doesn't seem like a good idea to start with." Even for you, Arthur mentally added.

There was another pause as Connor said something on the other side of the phone, Arthur's eyes lingering on the wire cutters that were drying out next to the sink. He looked away when his fingers began to curl around the edge of his shirt, adamantly not looking at the opened box of black garbage bags next to it.

"I'm sure Brenda drinks a lot more than I do. I wouldn't be surprised if she could."

There was a snort even audible without holding the phone close. Arthur looked over the several other red dots marking dates on the calendar, some a week earlier than the dot marked, two others only days apart. He walked into the living room, still holding the phone to his ear as he distractedly paused in front of the door, as if unsure whether or not to touch it. A few seconds later, he blinked in surprise at hearing Connor say something, eyes widening.

"I— what? No, that was a big garbage can! I didn't buy a giant_ beer brewer,_" Arthur said, a hint of red coming to his face. He couldn't help but lay a hand on the door knob, cracking it open to look outside. Only a line of evening light was visible.

The hint of red disappeared when Connor said something, Arthur's face becoming oddly emotionless and pale. He pushed the door open a little further.

"That's been resolved," he said, looking at the large trashcan that was pushed away from his house, its large lid clamped down to prevent scavengers from getting in. Arthur's voice was almost flat. "Jackliss is just bringing lots of scraps back, that's all."

There was a tense pause, Arthur holding his breath before Connor said something else, and he visibly sagged in relief. Some color returned to his face as he tapped the doorknob, absent-mindedly watching the movements outside. Jackliss should've been back at any moment. Arthur straightened up just as Connor began a barrage of swearing at something occurring at his house, seeing a patch of red fur emerging from the darkening bushes. He almost groaned when Jackliss's jug-shaped head appeared, something large, striped and bloody hanging from her jaws.

"Christ," Arthur said, feeling like slamming the door shut and pretending to not see his dog plodding towards his house with a broken animal in her mouth, giving her head a shake now and then. "Sorry, Connor, but I have to go. Jackliss just brought back something nasty and I don't know what it is." Arthur started to pull the phone away from his head when Connor replied, he pressing his phone back to his ear again as he headed for the receiver. "There could be something wrong with it; I don't want her to eat a sick or poisoned animal of some kind. She might get hurt," Arthur said, defensive concern showing through in his voice.

There was another snort from the other side of the phone, and Arthur could've sworn he heard a muffled 'just marry your damn dog already.' He resisted the urge to do something impolite as realized Jackliss was probably beginning to dissect her prey all over the lawn. He'd had enough of picking up mutilated dead animals.

"Bye, Connor," he said, shifting with unsettled steps in front of the phone receiver. This was taking too long.

There was finally an exasperated swear on the other end of the line, and Connor hung up. Arthur quickly jammed the phone into its holder and darted towards the door, weaving around the living room furniture.

"Jackliss!" he yelled as he pushed open the door, immediately closing it behind him. He didn't want to think what kind of mess would ensue if she made a run for the house with the raccoon in her jaws and made it to the couches. "Here, Jackliss!"

As he turned his head, Arthur spotted a clump of moving red fur around the corner of the house. Immediately guessing what it was, he ran over. "Jaaackliss!"

In the more tangled and bush choked part of the forest nearby, the dog crouched over a raccoon body and hatefully gnawed on its neck. There was a low growl in her throat, her fangs not buried in the raccoon's loose and tough hide showing, and she gave the raccoon several mighty shakes of her head, swinging the dangling limbs back and forth like the world's most terrible sock-puppet monkey. Arthur could see the playful way her tail was sticking up in the air and frantically wagging, but he hesitated before going closer. Taking her slobbered-coated prey didn't seem to be a good idea.

Without warning, Jackiss gave a yip of pain as she bit deeper into the raccoon, almost dropping it and making Arthur jump. He stared from where he stood as the pain made Jackliss angrier, she snarling louder and biting in harder. There was another muffled yip. To his horror, he could see blood beginning to run down the dead animal's fur, and some which didn't belong to it. Jackliss's lip was cut, two brand new and bleeding slits on the edges, and she was still tossing the raccoon around and getting more. Was there something in it? Arthur thought, edging closer. He shuddered as he realized what he would have to do to check. There was no garbage bag to dump the raccoon in afterwards, either.

Trying to summon up some bravery, and trying even harder to not think that bravery was equivalent to stupidity in some cases, Arthur crouched down to Jackliss's level, moving forward on his knees and slowly extending his hands. Goodbye fingers, he thought, looking at them as they nervously shook, I'm going to miss you.

"Jackliss," he muttered, trying to sound comforting. He wasn't sure if it was for Jackliss's benefit or his. "Come on, Jackie-jackie, hand it over… you're hurting yourself… come on, girl… please don't bite off my hands…"

Jackliss had stopped shaking the raccoon, noticing Arthur coming closer. She was now frozen with it still hanging in her mouth, cut lip continuing to bleed. Arthur was sure her brown eyes were judging him with every second he reached closer for her disgusting prize. When he actually touched the raccoon, feeling its wet coarse fur, he let out a little sound of repulsion, desperately trying not to look at it or the suddenly displeased expression on Jackliss's face. Her eyes were narrowed, and when he tried to give it a tug, she leaned backwards. It felt like he was attempting to extract a rag out of a steel trap.

"No, Jackliss," Arthur said, feeling his skin tremble as he gave another tug. Why was he doing this again? "Don't— don't do that. Give it to me. You can get another lovely… dead raccoon… from somewhere else," he said.

When Jackliss still didn't relinquish her hold, looking even more disgruntled, Arthur gave a harder tug. This time, she did. Arthur found himself tumbling backwards from his precariously balanced crouch and slamming into the dirt with a dead raccoon buried face-first into his shirt. He struggled not to scream. Hastily worming himself upright, Arthur shoved the raccoon away from him while he stood up, Jackliss watching it with intent eyes. Her toy was dangling from her owner's hands like it wanted her to bite it again, and she wanted it back. Now.

Arthur backed up when he saw the look on Jackliss's face, coonhound's back legs going taut and she slowly beginning to crouch. He'd already gotten dead raccoon essence smeared on his shirt; he didn't want Jackliss's paw prints and slobber added. She would jump for what she wanted, and she seldom missed. Arthur eyed the raccoon at hand with repulsion, nose wrinkling at the smell. It didn't matter how many of the animals Jackliss chased or how many had ended up hung around his house. He was always squeamish when it came to touching the horrible things.

Jackliss gave a huff of impatience at her plaything being held back, whine forming in the back of her throat as she licked the blood off her cut lip. Taking the cue, Arthur swallowed as he saw the place she'd been biting into. An unnaturally deep spot of dark blood was welled up at the base of the raccoon's neck. It definitely didn't look like one of Jackliss's bite marks, Arthur thought. In fact, it almost looked like a big shot wound or something else. Arthur's nose wrinkled and his face screwed up with a hint of nausea as he realized what he'd have to do to verify his guess. Jackliss whined again, almost barking.

"Jackliss, be quiet," Arthur squeaked, scrunching his eyes shut as his hand moved closer to the deep spot. He was almost reconsidering to take up Connor's invitation to join the drinking party. Almost.

Arthur jammed his fingers in and pulled out the obstruction inside the raccoon as fast as he could, finding it in seconds and almost slitting his finger open on it. He opened his eyes and tossed the raccoon as hard as he could the instant afterwards. Jackliss jumped on it with a happy bark.

At first, Arthur wasn't sure what he was looking at, but as he looked closer, he was even less sure. As Jackliss rushed off with her raccoon, Arthur was forced over the lingering feelings of sickness by pure surprise. In his hand was a small metal throwing star, four little wickedly sharp blades sprouting from a round center. It fit in the center of his hand without a problem, blades just long enough to brush against the start of his fingers and the bottom of his palm. This still didn't stop it from being heavy and dense. Despite having been embedded in a raccoon's neck seconds earlier, it already seemed to be shedding the blood like a duck with water across its plumes. Hints of dark metal shown out of the areas not covered with fur or blood, and Arthur thought he could see twisted carvings across its alien surface.

"Jackliss, who on earth did you steal the raccoon from?" Arthur whispered, giving a low whistle as he poked at the metal surface with fascination. One of the more ragged blade edges came close to cutting his finger. Arthur quickly stopped messing with it. He'd seen how Jackliss had so easily sliced her lip open on it, and he didn't want a compound of disgusting grime in his bloodstream.

Temporarily forgetting Jackliss, Arthur headed for his home and made his way into the kitchen. One rinse and wash later, he was sitting at the dining room table with cleaned hands and studying the oddest weapon he'd ever seen. He'd thought wiping it off would strip away some of the mystery as well as the grime, but all it did was raise more questions. Arthur hadn't seen too many weapons first-hand in his life. But even he was certain that most hunters or poachers didn't use dense little throwing stars made of metal that seemed harder and colder than steel… or had bizarre symbols and engravings burnt out of the surface, Arthur thought, narrowing his eyes and looking closer.

What looked like had once been a coherent pattern of dots and elongated lines that wound over the blades were scraped or burnt out of the metal's surface, leaving it scarred and rough. Nothing left was enough to tip Arthur off as to what the patterns could have been, even when he flipped it over. He was met with the same result. Whoever they were hadn't been pleased with the designs made on their bizarre weapon, and they'd apparently been angry enough to char it all off before they shot it into a raccoon's neck and left it there.

Arthur was sure the animal couldn't have ran off before they could retrieve it. Getting hit with the spinning blades or dense mass would've probably broken the raccoon's neck on impact. They just hadn't cared to retrieve their weapon or prey, so Jackliss had tracked it down and ended up with it, Arthur thought.

No matter how hard he looked at it, no secret or answer magically revealed itself, and Arthur carefully sat the throwing star on the dining room table before he got up. Some unformed thought in the back of his mind was irking him, like two obvious puzzle pieces he couldn't put together, and combined with all the other events taking place, it made Arthur nervous enough to want pull Jackliss inside. Her absence never boded well.

Ever since the skinned groundhog had appeared almost a month ago, not a day after Officer Daniel had declared the case closed, Arthur had remained silent about it. It had taken a lot of strength and reasoning in the middle of hyperventilating, but Arthur had stopped dialing 911 right in the middle of it and forced the phone down from his ear, taking deep and shuddering breaths. There had been something so, so wrong about it— so wrong about _everything—_ Arthur thought, making his way to the living room couch as he quietly relived the grim memory, but the fact that the police had convicted Jeremiah Walker and made the grotesque killings stop for everyone but him had sent a clear message: there was someone else out there.

And looking at the putrid yet skilled way they'd managed to hang the groundhog down from such a tall height and such thin wire told Arthur that he didn't want to mess with them, not with the cops 30 miles away. If they were that mentally twisted and powerful, it'd be very easy to offend their warped manners by calling the cops to take down the body again… and they might've not chosen to be as charitable to Arthur the second time around.

Eventually, a nauseated Arthur had finished shaking, taken a deep breath, and managed to climb up a ladder leaned on the tree with some wire cutters in hand. He'd had to buy them a week after the birds had been left in his yard, the wire holding the feathery catalysts for the whole ordeal too tough for scissors to gnaw through. Jackliss had been full of whatever she'd stalked, watching Arthur take down the groundhog and throw it far off into the woods with little interest.

After that, the nightmare had started.

There were no more birds, Arthur thought, momentarily curling up on the couch and laying his chin on his knees. He felt exhausted. The only thing that showed up now were small animals around bobcat size or littler, each one creatively strewn around different points of the house grounds and trussed up just the same way. Then he'd have to cut them down, drop them in a black garbage bag, and dump them into that huge trashcan he'd bought outside, placed far off so that he didn't have to smell the scent of decomposing flesh. Arthur refused to dig them all graves, knowing that some scavenger or Jackliss would just dig them back up again and make things worse.

As if things weren't bad enough, Arthur thought, wrapping one of his hands around his ankle as he thought of the body he'd had to cut down earlier today. Another bobcat.

The carcasses always appeared during the time when Jackliss was out gallivanting in the woods for hours on end. Not all the times she was gone, not near as much, Arthur thought, massaging his temple, but always during one of those times. It had gotten to the point where he was marking down each day he found a body and removed it down on the calendar, hoping to spot a pattern. There currently wasn't one. He was afraid to go outside, knowing exactly what'd he find when Jackliss returned.

Even worse, he was afraid to go out before she returned and meet the person while they were putting them up.

Arthur finally couldn't stand being on the couch any longer and got up, ready to bring Jackliss inside another night. He didn't want to increase the chances of receiving more than one grisly present in one day, and after having to lie to Connor about getting the situation permanently closed, he felt like he needed some unquestioning company.

"Jackliss!" he called from the doorway. "Here, girl!" Arthur was relieved when the coonhound perked her head up from behind some bushes without the raccoon she'd been toying with. She'd probably buried it out of spite. Seeing the open invitation for the house and plenty of furniture to rub her constantly shedding fur and muddied feet on, Jackliss bounced over the stairs and darted up them and through the door without a second thought. Arthur glanced out into the falling evening before he shut the door behind them.

When he turned around, Jackliss had already made herself comfortable on one of the couches, stretching out her body as far as it would go. Arthur was relieved to see that the cuts on her lip had stopped their bleeding. Feeling so much evening ahead of him without much to do, Arthur patted Jackliss on the head before heading to the dining room and picking up the throwing star from the table. Maybe looking over it again would yield some answers. Arthur settled in on the end of the couch, unable to prod Jackliss aside from where she dominated the cushions. He made a sound of amusement as he looked at her comfortable pose, brushing his fingers against one of her chipped ears while he took care to hold the throwing star in the other.

"You're spoiled," he said, tapping her nose as she grew oddly stiff, ears perking up to listen to something farther back in the house. "Stop letting those raccoons lure you away; I need you."

It took Arthur around five long seconds to realize what he'd said, he still absently poking Jackliss's nose. He froze, slowly feeling the throwing star in his hand growing colder as the realization arrived, opening his hand to look at the dark metal flower of blades. Where had it been? In the neck of a raccoon Jackliss had gone after. When did all the hung-up animals appear? When Jackliss wasn't there, out chasing and eating animals in the woods. She had been absent or far too full of food to alert him when something was going wrong lately, not to mention the hound was looking rather unscarred for hunting down so many animals in the woods…

Arthur felt the chill run down his spine even as Jackliss sat up on the couch, staring at the hall to the back door with perked ears and fiercely attentive eyes, her back stiff. It was a set-up. Whoever it was had learned that Jackliss could sense them coming and alert Arthur, and they'd been luring her away ever since. He'd left her outside after the entire ordeal had started and let them do it. Tonight was the first night Arthur had brought her inside the house in weeks.

Jackliss went into a crouch and gave a hideous snarl with her red fur bristling, all of her teeth bared and scruff on end. Arthur leaned back from her, feeling startled even as she edged closer, making some of the most feral and violent sounds he'd ever heard.

"Jackliss?" he said, mouth going dry.

A clicking and purring noise seemed to come from everywhere in the room at once.


End file.
